Emotions!A Window To Your Thoughts

(2.iv) How to Harness the Hidden Power within Your Emotions

Emotions can often be difficult to deal with. When you understand how they are created, you can use their power to accelerate your achievements.

Where do your feelings come from? Are they good or bad?

Do you want to start feeling better right now?

Follow the Self Help Workshop links, on the top navigation bar. This free information has been strategically placed in a specific order for your benefit; to help you achieve quick results.The Self Help Workshop starts here!

Accept responsibility for how you feel!

I have experienced more bad times in my life than I care to remember. I used to wonder:

Why me?

Why can’t I be happy?

What did I do to deserve all this suffering?

Will I ever enjoy life?

Like many others, I had the mistaken belief we cannot change how we feel. I never took any responsibility for my feelings and always looked for something or someone else to blame.

After all, when someone is depressed, nervous, anxious, sad or emotionally drained, how could this possibly be their own fault?

Then I discovered: Behind every emotion is a thought!

The thoughts you put into your mind (whether by conscious choice or allowing your mind to operate on auto pilot) result in what you get out.

Only you can choose which thoughts dominate your mind.

To be happy, choose happy thoughts. Likewise, if you are unhappy and experiencing anger, fear, depression or anxiety, your energy and thoughts are focused on negatives.

Imagine life as a long hallway full of doors. Each door is clearly labeled with the lesson you will learn.

You can choose to open the doors leading to lessons on love, happiness, peace and success or you can choose to open doors to learn about anger, fear, worry, anxiety, stress or hate.

In reality, this is exactly what you are doing.

The problem is not the lesson any of us chooses, rather it is how we ignore or hide our feelings and don’t make the effort to learn, change and grow.

As I am typing this information, the lyrics of a very popular song come to mind: "Oh, how happy you have made me."

No one has the ability to make you happy; or sad for that matter.

Let’s look at a new relationship to help you understand this concept.

You meet what appears to be your ideal mate. You start dating, everything is going along great. You tell everyone how lucky you are and you feel like you can do anything.

As time passes and things continue on a positive note, you begin to make future plans and imagine your life together full of love and happiness.

You are, without a doubt on top of the world and very happy.

It is not the other person who made you happy. It is your own thoughts of what a great mate you have; your own thoughts about the wonderful life ahead.

All of your happiness originated within your own mind - the thoughts of happiness.

Learn to switch your negative thoughts to positive thoughts and you have effectively learned to experience good feelings.

What Happens When You Ignore Emotions?

I used to ignore my feelings and try to stuff them away where no one could see. Bad idea!

When anyone ignores how they feel, they stay stuck in a never ending cycle such as anger, depression or fear.

I believe most women have the advantage here. They are taught as children to express themselves openly and were seldom criticized for being emotional.

Men on the other hand are trained to be emotionless. We are told it is unmanly to cry or express our feelings. We are programmed to stuff them away and hold back.

Regardless of gender, repressing your feelings is extremely dangerous and can only lead to health problems; both physical and mental.

When you hold something inside it builds steam like a pressure cooker, until finally it releases.

Unfortunately, things always seem to release at an inappropriate time. Seldom, if ever do they release when you are alone.

Those you love the most are often hurt when you release.

The second problem is trying to control how you feel. I was guilty of this for many years.

Here is what happened to me. I had a major problem with anger and rage. I spent years working hard to control it so others wouldn’t see me angry or out of control.

I actually became very successful at hiding my anger and thought I was making great progress.

Then one year at Christmas everyone was full of excitement opening their presents and really enjoying the holiday spirit.

Seeing my family so happy, I felt a pang of jealousy. I realized how emotionless I had really become.

While everyone else was letting go and enjoying the experience, I was holding back and not letting anything out.

It occurred to me there is an undesirable side affect to this form of self-control.

Ultimately I ended up like a zombie with no expressions (good or bad) and the inability to let anything out.

It's the yin and yang of life. I wasn’t allowing myself to experience the negatives and therefore could no longer experience the positives either.

This is when I realized there had to be a more effective method of dealing with unwanted feelings.

The third problem is the missed opportunity to look through the window of your life.

How you feel provides you with valuable information! It shows us where we are focusing our thoughts and energy.

If you have negative feelings you are focusing on negative thoughts.

On the other hand, if you are feeling happiness, love and joy you are focusing on the positive.

Are Emotions Good or Bad?

To fully appreciate any aspect of life, you need to experience its opposite. You cannot possibly know what happiness is if you have never experienced sadness.

If there were only happiness in your life, how would you know it was happiness unless you could compare the feeling to times when you were unhappy?

Your thinking and your beliefs are what determines if anything is good or bad.

In reality, any feeling is neither until it is expressed.

A positive feeling such as love can be expressed in a loving way and remain positive. Love could also be expressed negatively, perhaps by abuse or withholding love from someone.

A negative, such as anger may be expressed perhaps as rage and remain negative. It could also be positive when displayed in a situation where your safety is threatened.

Emotional Intelligence:

I think when people refer to emotional intelligence; most often they are actually referring to “intuition” or a “sixth sense” which I discussed in the previous section.

I feel emotional intelligence really means your ability to intelligently look at your feelings. Expose them to the light. Look at them as the window to your thoughts.

When you acknowledge and accept how you are feeling, only then can you look for the thought that caused these feelings. You are now focused on self-improvement.

In previous sections I explained when we resist anything, we attract more of whatever it is we are resisting. The same applies to your feelings. When you resist how you feel, you attract more bad feelings.

Now for the Good News!

When you are in a highly positive emotional state, your subconscious will have stronger and more neurode connections.

These connections will be more permanent, more in number and “fire” more easily. This has been proven scientifically!

Also, you will remember things longer, more clearly and with better recall.

Dr. Larry Cahill presented information and research findings which clearly indicate memory is affected by the emotional state of an individual during the time they are creating memory.

The amygdala of the brain controls the release of hormones in the brain, based on a pattern of neuron impulses that pass through the amygdala. (Note: the amygdala does not release hormones rather it “triggers” their release.)

These neurotransmitters which the amygdala caused to be released act as fertilizer to increase the number of growing DSPs. (Dendrite spiny protuberances – see Step One)

The search for meaning in the brain occurs through patterning (connecting things that are related to time and space).

Emotions are critical to patterning!

Theoretically, a self-induced artificial emotional state could cause more of these neurotransmitters to be released and when trying to learn, memorize or achieve anything, your level of success would be greater due to this induced emotional state.

Later I will go into more detail on this amazing subject. For now, suffice it to say we can learn to use strong emotion to our advantage when it comes to achievement.

Here is what we have learned:

Behind every emotion is a thought.

Take responsibility for how you feel. Look for the originating thought.

Ignoring or hiding feelings is not a solution.

They are not good or bad, right or wrong, negative or positive until they are expressed.

They are valuable and provide a window to your thoughts.

Feelings we stuff away come to the boiling point, usually at an inappropriate time.

Embrace your feelings, accept them and they loose power. Resist them and they grow in power.

You can accelerate your achievements when learning in a positive, emotionally charged state of mind.

In the next section, you will discover how "right now" is the only time you have for achieving goals.